Date of Game: Friday Oct. 24th
Clan BalíUlthrik and the Thel Orcs
By Chrissy K III
A couple of weeks ago I was at my church praying and furthering my advancement in the clerical arts. Suddenly, I got an odd feeling, like I was being watched. I wasnít too worried about it, I feel like Iím pretty experienced and I have the gods on my side. It didnít feel like it could be that dangerous, wow was I wrong. I wouldnít find out what was bothering me that night. But, because of the weird feelings I was getting I healed some homeless people and gave them some food, so I would be in the favor of the gods, just in case. That night I set up a Wyvern Watch on my door and the rest of the walking space in my house. This made me feel safer, so I slept soundly that night.
Next morning, I awoke and found a letter at my front door. The Wyvern Watch was still up so it must have been there when I got home the night before. I opened the letter hastily and read that the town called Border Bay needed my help, but with what I had no idea. Well I knew it couldnít be easy if a town was calling for help so I went out in search of people to come with me. The two people I first started adventuring with didnít like adventuring much anymore, they had found enough gold and now were relaxing for the rest of their lives. Then I realized that I had recently adventured with some less experienced people. One named Tarl, a fighter, he was kind of a smart mouth teenage human. Stupid humans, they are always so full of themselves. Then there was someone named McSchmuppie, a paladin, I shouldnít speak badly of a Paladin, but he is so annoying and worthless, he is worthless besides detecting evil, which I can do with a few seconds. Well Tarl seemed like a better companion on this trip so I ventured over to Tarlís residence. I showed him the letter and he made fun of it for a little while, but decided he would come with. I think he was hoping for some fame and fortune. But even with Tarl helping me we didnít feel like there would be enough people. Then I got that strange feeling again like somebody was watching me and out of nowhere McSchmuppie shows up and is like Iíll go with you guys. Tarl and I both groan, but accept as we need more companions on this dangerous mission. I still felt like we would need more help as Tarl was still fairly new to the fighting game, and the paladin was also new to it and was completely worthless at least Tarl helped out. So, I paid someone 50 Gold to get a message for me to Gohan of Lowburg. It would take a week for it to get there and a week for Gohan to get back. So we had 14 days of waiting, hopefully the town would still be ok by then. Well I did my usual praying, healing, feeding, and the occasional fishing as I have gotten lessons from the fisherman of Burn Heart Bay. I even caught a trophy fish that was 5 inches and weighed 2 pounds. After Gohan made it to Goldenthull, we set off the next morning. The paladin was late, not a surprise to anyone, I think I heard Gohan ask Tarl why we even travel with this pathetic Paladin. All Tarl could say is he stalks the Dwarf; we canít get rid of him. Anyway we decide to leave without him. As we are leaving the gate we see the Paladin come running up dropping half his stuff, and not able to get on his horse, shouting wait, wait Iím coming. We stop, and wait finally he catches up. It was a boring day on the trail, halfway through the day, I shout shoot, I forgot to check the magic shop for goodies. Oh well, when we get home that will have to be good enough.
Well we make it to the first few towns ok, but as we were in between the 2nd and the 3rd towns on the way to Border Bay, we were attacked by an Owlbear. I call a million insects and send them to attack the Owlbear. The Paladin runs away, why did we even bring him? Well Tarl and I easily finish off the Owlbear, while Gohan sits back and relaxes and tries to calm the Paladin down. For the rest of the trip it seemed like the Paladin was mad at Tarl, but I have no idea why. They werenít talking anymore and had to be on opposite sides of the camp from each other. The next day we cut across the planes and the next day up to Border Bay, we made it there just fine. It was night so we got a meeting with the mayor in the morning. He pretty much told us that the orcs were attacking their town but they were ok with that until now, because they found this death forge and now were making super Orcs called Thel Orcs. Our job was first to go investigate and prove ourselves to him. We were quite offended and about to head home, but the treasure kept us there. Our first task was to kill some of the clan BalíUlthrik orcs and bring their badges back to the mayor; we forgot to ask for a specific number when we left. But we approached the mountain the mayor had told us we would find some of the orcs as they are spread throughout the mountains. So, we stayed hidden and tried to assess how many orcs there were, and how we could kill them and get there badges to bring back to the mayor without getting the whole clan involved. The paladin was like we canít kill them one of them might be good. We ignored him; he was just going to be our bait. So we decided we couldnít do it without attracting attention. So we would make it on our on terms of fighting. What we decided is I cast two spells and made all the plants turn into thorns that were invisible to the naked eye, but would hurt you if you ran across them. The Paladin was supposed to call them down so that they would run down into it trying to get to us, but he was scared so finally Tarl just did it, worthless Paladin. Seven came running down, and three stayed up and shot arrows down at us, my sling wouldnít reach them, but the Paladin and Gohan shot up at them, Tarl didnít have a bow as he couldnít afford one yet. I shot at the ones running down. Gohan and the Paladin took out there three easily, I think that the Paladin might have actually hit one and that it wasnít all Gohan. I killed one. Then they reached my thorns, 1 missed the thorns but the other 5 hit them and died on the way through to us. Tarl easily finished off the last one. So in all so far I had 6.5 kills, Gohan had 2, Tarl had 1.5, and The Paladin with 1. Not bad, I thought we were doing a good job. I was surprised, the Paladin had even gotten 1.
We then searched the bodies. We took all of their items of value, and also their clan badges to prove ourselves and returned to town. In the morning we went to talk to the mayor, and we brought him the 10 badges thinking that would be enough. In our conversation with the mayor he told us that the there were bigger orcs in the group known as Thel orcs and that when they are killed they explode into flames. He also told us that they thought the orcs were using a death forge to turn regular orcs into the Thel orcs. He wanted us to then prove ourselves again. What was this mayor thinking? We could probably take their whole town. We were really offended this time. So the next day we headed out to the orc cave again. The bodies were still there though, they hadnít been picked up at all and there were no new orcs guarding the entrance. So we headed in, well Tarl and I did. McSchmuppie was too scared and needed Gohan to stay back with him to protect him. Again, why did we bring the paladin? When Tarl was ready to go I cast a sanctuary on both of us and then a silence spell over us. We then headed in to scout the cave. When we got a little way into the cave we saw a Thel orc sitting there sleeping. I stepped out of the silence spell, which was on Tarl. I then cast a spell that when stepped or fallen in would catch the person and tie them up. I placed it right in front of the Thel orc. Then I stepped back into the silence. Tarl would then push the orc into the rope and we would take him back to town. So we had it all set up, Tarl went behind the orc and pushed, but he tripped as he did it, and he failed miserably. The Orc then woke up. Oh no, I didnít know if we could take it, at least we were still in the silence so none of the other orc could here us. Tarl tried a second time before the orc could react and he succeeded the second time, so we brought the orc back with us. We brought him back to town and made it there during the middle of the night. As it would be a pain to try to keep the orc all night we went straight to the mayor. Once we made it there we talked to the mayorís advisor, he told us we couldnít meet with the mayor until morning. We should have just leave this town to their fate since they were just setting us back, but being a priest, my morals told me to stay. So we finally got him to agree to a short meeting with the mayor by telling him we were going to let the orc loose on him. That got him moving. In our meeting with the mayor he told us that they would question and get information about the orcs from him and would report back to us in the morning.
In the morning we went back to see what they had found out. He told us pretty much what he told us at the beginning. The exact information was as follows. Ulthrik the Forge Master was using the Death Forge to create Thel orcs. They had captured a demon and had him locked up, I donít remember the name of the demon. They then had an orc chained up to the wall. Then 4 orc mages took flames from the demon and sent them through the Dwarven Death Forge and through them into the orc turning them into a super orc. They also had a Dwarven made hammer called Muradorís Hammer, which was the only way to destroy the Death Forge and to free the demon.
After the meeting we set off to the cave once again. When we made it to the cave it was exactly as it was before. We gathered up the orcs we first killed and I animated 5 of them to join us in out battle against the orcs. So we headed in and forced the paladin to come with us this time. We then reached the spot where we had captured the Thel orc. That was also as we had left it. I then cast prayer on us, so we would get an advantage in out battle against the deadly super orcs. Then I cast silence on us so they wouldnít here us coming. We then went deeper into the cave. We reached a fork in the road and decided to go left. Eventually, we reached a large cave, and we peered into it. We saw an orc hanging on the wall, the Death Forge, 4 orc mages, and a demon locked up in chains. There were flames coming out of the demon, through the Death Forge, and into the orc hung up in the chains. Both the demon and the orc were screaming in pain. We then saw them release the orc, who was now a Thel orc, but he just collapsed to the ground, exhausted. We attacked boy were they surprised. I shot at a mage, McSchmuppie shot at a different one, Gohan at another, and my animated orcs took the forth. Tarl went for the Thel orc that couldnít fight back and the orc that let him down. We each took out or mages, I was the first one done and went to help Tarl with the Thel orc since it was a little harder to kill. Even my animated orcs were able to finish off their mage with only two of them being destroyed although the other three were in pretty bad shape and could only be used for a distraction. After they were killed we stripped their bodies, while the demon yelled at us to free him. He told us we had to go down the other path and find BalíUlthrik and get the hammer from him to free the demon.
We than ran down the other path, but were cut off by two orcs, they called on some captured spirits of dwarves and 4 dwarves came to attack us. I couldnít attack my kin, so I shot at one of the orcs, as did Gohan and McSchmuppie. Tarl went to fight the dwarves to protect us from the approaching dwarves. McSchmuppie and Gohan finished off one orc and I finished off the other. The dwarves dissipated into air when their orc controllers vanished. We headed down the cave path further and ran into 2 Thel orc and a orc wearing plaitmail and holding a hammer, no doubt BalíUlthrik. We reached them right at the opening of another cavern. They were ready for us. Gohan, Tarl, and McSchmuppie went for the Thel orcs and I headed for BalíUlthrik. The other 3 easily took down the Thel Orcs, and I almost had BalíUlthrik killed and they came to help me finish the job. Once killed BalíUlthrik we took the hammer and stripped his body and grabbed all the treasure in this room. Then we went back to the other chamber and I destroyed the Death Forge. Then we grabbed the rest of the treasure in this room.
On our way to leave the cavern the demon demanded that we set him free. We all thought this a stupid idea even though he was a weak demon he could probably kill us all. So I decided I would cast spiritual hammer and just kill him in his chains. So everyone got out of the chamber and I tried it, but the spell on the chains holding him in, wouldnít let me hit him. So we decided to leave him in the chains and just leave. We made it back to town and let the mayor no we destroyed the Death Forge. As a reward we got about 1000 gold pieces and whatever we found on our adventure. We made it safely back to Goldenthull.
In Goldenthull, I kept the hammer, but at a price where I will owe McSchmuppie, Tarl, and Gohan for quite a while. In all it was a really good adventure. I think Tarl may have become more skilled in his craft during it also. Hopefully some day the paladin will become more skilled as well. The count for kills was as follows; Chrissy K lll 8.5, Tarl 4.5, McSchmuppie 4, Gohan 2, animated orcs 1. Some kills were exchanged with Gohan, but he didnít help to much. As I said he was lazy.

It's kind of long, it was a good quest Sergio. I started typing it awhile ago, and just finished it now, so the end was hazy and may have some made up mistakes. I'll be writing about the game from two weekend ago soon, unless someone else was thinking about writing the synopsis for that one. Steve? Alex? Mike?